Yes, they actually have elections in Iran

The conventional wisdom on Iran - from the American perspective at least - is that it's a country run by a cabal of religious leaders and one loopy dictator, "President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Ahmadinejad was actually elected to the office and stands for re-election this week. And the traits that make the West think he's a bit nuts, might just derail his bid for a second term.

Iran is apparently abuzz over last week's televised presidential debate between Ahmadinejad and his main challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister and once-close confidant to the Islamic Republic's founder the late Ayatollah Khomeini (despite that pedigree, Mousavi is considered a moderate reformer). Ahmadinejad came out in the debate in his usual style, rhetorical guns blazing, essentially accusing Mousavi of treason and corruption, his sons of stealing from the government and his wife, a university professor, of faking her credentials (The Guardian has video highlights of the debate).

But Mousavi shot back - accusing Ahmadinejad of being a bad Muslim for making accusations against his family without offering proof, and slammed the president for ruining Iran's reputation abroad with his claims that the Holocaust never happened, along with his confrontational attitude towards the global community.

According to EurasiaNet, the debate was an eye-opener for many Iranians, since the tightly-controlled, state-run media in Iran usually shies away from showing Ahmadinejad's rants and conspiracy theories. The belligerent Ahmadinejad that appeared in the debate was not the one they were use to seeing. After the debate, watched by perhaps 60% of all Iranians, people took to the streets to talk about what they had just seen, with some impromptu political rallies breaking out.

Ahmadinejad's attack-dog approach to the debate may have backfired. Not only did it spark a surge of interest in the Iranian public, which previously had been fairly apathetic towards the election, but it also prompted some stinging rebukes from Iran's religious leadership. Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's supreme religious leader, took Ahmadinejad to task for his unsubstantiated charges against Mousavi saying: "one doesn’t like to see a nominee, for the sake of proving himself, seeking to negate somebody else," basically putting a lid on negative campaigning in the process.

Another of Iran's religious leaders, Grand Ayatollah Yusef Saanei (himself another Khomeini disciple) went a step further and urged Iranian voters to oust President Ahmadinejad for failing to improve the lives of poor Iranians and, again, for damaging the country's image abroad by failing to live up to a 2003 deal where Iran agreed to suspend its nuclear research program and for his repeatedly calling the Holocaust a 'myth'.

It's worth remembering that Ahmadinejad was actually elected on a platform of making sure Iran's oil wealth helped out the poorest members of their society. But during his reign, little progress has been made in reducing poverty in Iran, while state resources have been diverted to the country's nuclear research program – something that, along with his own belligerence, has helped to isolate Iran from the international community.

But with Ahmadinejad taking flak from Iran's religious authorities and political reformers suddenly energized by last week's debate, Thursday's election could be one to watch.